


Polaroids

by A Caffeinated Crisis (TabbbyWright)



Series: What it Means to Move Forward (Post Series AU) [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Adventures in therapy, First chapter isn't explicitly romantic, Gen, M/M, The original character is Yuri's therapist, Yuri is a disaster and also gay, but this is definitely pawnship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 08:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18406751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TabbbyWright/pseuds/A%20Caffeinated%20Crisis
Summary: Yuri's certain his therapist is trying to annoy him to death with this nonsense "take pictures of what makes you happy" assignment, but the sooner he gets to a place where people think he's healthy, the sooner he can be done with this, right?





	Polaroids

“Are you done interrogating me for today?” Yuri sat back on the sofa, eyes on the clock, itchy to get out of here. It was only an hour, but it somehow managed to take everything out of him and leave him feeling weirdly raw.

“Almost, almost.” His therapist, Sanae, reached into her purse, digging around for a moment, muttering a swear under her breath.

“Disorganized as always, Sanae?”

“Shush, you try being a parent and see how organized you are.”

Yuri snorted, waiting patiently for the woman to find whatever she was looking for. The sooner she found it, the sooner he could leave, the sooner he could get back to the house and take a nap.

“Aha!” She pulled a pouch out of her purse, receipts scattering the floor in its wake. She held it out to Yuri and curiously, he took it. A lightweight leather case, he opened it.

“A camera?”

“A polaroid camera, to be precise.”

“What am I going to do with this?” 

“Well, I have an assignment for you.” Sanae began, and immediately Yuri didn’t like where this was going.

“I want you to take photos of things that make you happy, stick them in a notebook, write a little note about why.”

“What am I supposed to gain from this? Sounds stupid.”

“It’s a tool for you to hopefully get better at identifying your feelings and what triggers what. In particular, you’re really bad at identifying things that make you feel positively.”

“Well nothing does, I told you that.”

“I remember.”

Yuri rolled his eyes, stuffed the camera in his messenger bag. This was stupid. So stupid.

“I want you to take one picture this week and write a note about it. Can you do that?”

“I can if you let me skip a week.”

“I’ll let you skip if you take two pictures.”

“... I accept.”

Surely this would be simple enough to fulfill. He could come up with some bullshit pretty easily, and he was getting a week off.

They said their obligatory goodbyes and Yuri made his way through the lobby and outside into the warm spring air. Just feeling the sun on his skin made him feel a little calmer, a little less raw at the edges. It had been a few months since everything ended and he still didn’t know what to make of… _this._ All he’d ever known was to destroy things and people, to make them fear him, to get some kind of approval from the Professor, and later, to follow the magnetism that pulled him to his counterparts.

In the moments of that brief merge, he had become nothing, and then he’d felt something burned out of him, leaving him empty and sick once they were four again. Since then, he had been trying to figure out exactly what it was, and why he didn’t feel like himself anymore. Limitless cruelty was beyond him now, and he couldn’t stand being near Rin or Ruri, knowing that he’d been the one to kidnap them and take them to hell.

Everything he felt was a bizarre landscape of too much and too little and repulsion at anything unfamiliar. Even with the mandatory therapy, even with the rare occasions he babbled like an idiot and told Sanae too much, understanding these things was far beyond his grasp. He prided himself on knowing things—knowledge was power, and he certainly didn’t have any physical strength at his disposal, so to not know… well, he hated it.

Between that and this newfound freedom of choice, his life was somehow more exhausting than when he was dueling all the time, dueling anyone that looked at him wrong, destroying person after person after person. No one ever asked him what he wanted before now and now they asked him _all the damn time_ and frankly, it was torture.

Not that he was ready to admit that to anyone but Sanae, and Sanae only got to hear things because she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. Yoko and Yusho and people “concerned about his well being” made him do this, but he made them agree that his therapist was never allowed to pass on anything he told her.

So far, it’d held true. He told her things that would alarm anyone, specifically to try and see her squirm and see if she would tell Yoko, but as far as he could tell, she hadn’t. He worried a bit that it was because she hadn’t taken him seriously, but she had _seemed_ alarmed enough.

Yuri didn’t know what to do with the woman, honestly. She was hard to read, and even after all these months he hadn’t gotten any better at it. Mostly, he supposed she was kind and patient, though she was also kind of a smartass, and she never danced around whatever point she was trying to make with him.

_“You only get out of therapy what you put into it, you know.”_

_“There’s nothing to put into it, I’m only here because I have to be.”_

_“Pretty sure there’s a lot to put into it, Mister I-Carded-Hundreds-of-People.”_

_“Because I wanted to.”_

_“Maybe so.”_

Frankly, she was absolutely exhausting, and now she wanted him to take pictures of things that made him happy with this shitty little camera? Maybe he’d get out of therapy because she’d exhaust him to death. He wouldn’t mind that.

**/ / /**

The first thing he did when he got home, as he always did, was slip into the garden and check on his plants, look for things he may have missed in the faint light of dawn. He checked his insect traps, satisfied with the slugs he found in them, very much dead (and therefore unable to eat his plants). Yugo didn’t like this, for some reason. He never said anything, but the look on his face when Yuri killed them was visibly horrified.

Too bad for Yugo, while Yuri didn’t like seeing Yugo upset (generally), he wasn’t about to change his tactics. Slugs and other pests invading his garden was a declaration of war, and Yuri wasn’t about to lose. Was satisfaction the same as being happy? Who knew, but it was probably close enough. He pulled the camera out of his bag and snapped a picture of the fallen slugs. He was going to need to take another can of beer from Yoko today to refill these…

He watched as the camera spit out a little photo, entirely black, before he pulled it out and waved it in the air. He was pretty sure this was how you were supposed to do it, if TV was anything to go by.

Yuri continued his inspection, found another trap that needed to be changed out and worked his way back to the front of the house. His duel disk said it was about four… Yoko wasn’t going to be home yet, but Yugo would be soon, maybe one of the others if they’d gone to school today—

“Yuri!”

It continued to be extremely weird to see Yugo in a school uniform, though still unmistakably _him_. He knew people mixed them up and it baffled him how people could mistake someone as bright and expressive as Yugo with somber Yuto or Yuya, who so clearly only let people see what he wanted them to see.

Yuri waited by the front door, watching as Yugo attempted to run off, only to get grabbed by Rin, get lectured about whatever test was this week, and only let him go when the look on Yugo’s face became too pitiful to bear. He bolted in an instant, running up to the front door and shoving a paper in Yuri’s face.

“Look what I did! It was hard, but I did it!”

Yuri pulled it out of his hand and rolled his eyes.

“How am I supposed to look when you shove it in my face like that?” He asked, glancing over the paper. Some math test that was frankly beyond Yuri’s skill level and a bright red _100_ on the top.

“Not bad.”

“Is that it? I aced it and all you’re gonna tell me is ‘not bad?!’” Yugo pouted.

“Fine, good job.” Yuri handed back the test, averting his gaze from Yugo’s face and how he was absolutely _glowing._

“What’d you do today? You saw Sanae right? Was she a pain in the ass?”

“As always.” Without hesitation, Yuri held up the photo of the dead slugs to Yugo, “She gave me a camera and told me to take pictures of things that make me happy.”

“Y-You’re weird. You’re really weird.” Yugo scowled now, looking away from the photo immediately and fishing out his keys to finally get into the house. Yuri couldn’t keep the pleased smile off his face.

Yuri followed Yugo inside, keeping quiet while Yugo announced he was home. The house gave no answer, as Yuri expected. Yuto was somewhere, Yuya was either asleep or _maybe_ at the stupid little school. Actually, the latter seemed pretty likely, given how much he liked the kids. Well, whatever. He would show up eventually, or not, and Yuri didn’t really care either way. Probably. No, definitely. Yugo was the only one that inspired some weird fondness in him, everyone else was just someone he had to tolerate.

Shoes haphazardly tossed to the side, Yugo ran up the stairs and Yuri slipped off his own before going into the kitchen. He might as well make tea--he was craving it, and Yugo would drink anything put in front of him. He grabbed the kettle, filled it with water, stuck it on the stove.

Digging into the cabinets, impulse led Yuri to grabbing one of the more expensive teas—the one that he was a little possessive of, because it had been expensive and it was _good_ and _his._ Yugo probably wouldn’t appreciate this as much as he should, but well, Yugo was a simple creature who was more than happy with whatever you gave him.

But Yuri wanted it, so he’d share this one time.

Tea more or less prepared, he opened the fridge, stole a can of Yoko’s beer and stuck it on the table so he wouldn’t forget about it. An absurd amount of rice balls were prepared on one of the upper shelves, a note about getting home late because of errands she had to do or whatever. He set one of the two plates on the counter, shut the fridge.

Yugo slid into the kitchen, sock footed feet sliding across the polished hardwood, uniform replaced with a t-shirt and sweatpants. His eyes immediately caught the plate on the counter, excitement written across his face. He didn’t hesitate in grabbing the plate, taking a seat at the table and peeling back the plastic wrap.

He took one, the size of his fist, and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. Yuri stared, impressed when Yugo managed not to choke.

“Do you want any?” Yugo asked, his hand hovering over a second rice ball, clearly trying not to seem _too_ over eager.

“I’m fine.” Yuri said as he took the kettle off the burner and shut off the stove. He put his tea in the kettle and set the timer on his duel disk, waiting for it to steep. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Yugo stuffed the second rice ball in his mouth, still having no difficulty in just devouring it.

“Am I fuppoffed to fave any?” Yugo said around a third one.

Yuri shrugged and grabbed down a couple of cups for them. This happened with the two of them often enough, alone in the house like this, and Yuri didn’t know how to feel about it. He used to delight in getting Yugo alone, seeing how _fearless_ he was in the face of Yuri, the unmistakable pull of attraction in his eyes, the simultaneous repulsion and attraction in seeing expressions spelled out across Yugo’s identical face that were so far from Yuri’s own. He had wanted to see him squirm, see what other expressions could be drawn out of the synchro duelist.

These days, that attraction was still _there_ but Yuri didn’t know how to deal with the changes in the rest. He didn’t have the venom he used to have, he didn’t feel like himself at all and he didn’t know what to _do_. He wanted to see Yugo squirm, but he didn’t want to _hurt_ him and that was the strangest thing of all. He wanted to toy with Yugo, but not upset him. A stranger lived in his skin now, messing up his entire life and even _this_ stupid thing.

On top of that, he didn’t get why Yugo was so comfortable with him. Was it pity? Probably. The merge had opened the counterparts up to each other in disgustingly invasive ways that only could _inspire_ pity. He could see it in the way Yuya and Yuto looked at him, and Yugo probably thought of him the same way even if the only things Yuri could read off of him were the most dramatic of things.

Taking the kettle to the table, followed by the cups, Yuri didn’t know why he didn’t mind this, why seeing Yugo’s eyes light up made something _comfortable_ spark inside of him. Everything about this was wrong, they were supposed to be one and everyone was supposed to be dead or cowering in fear, and instead he was sitting at a kitchen table having _tea_ with one of his counterparts.

“It smells good… What is it?”

“Gyokuro. It’s expensive, you should be thankful I’m sharing it with someone as tasteless as you.”

Yugo blinked, frowned.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s good, if you don’t inhale it like some kind of animal.” Yuri said, pouring a cup for each of them.

Yugo picked up his cup, very cautiously taking a sip, then another, looking oddly pensive. He continued this for a minute before setting down the cup, a pleased smile on his face.

“It’s good!”

“It cost me twenty-seven hundred yen for a hundred gram bag and _that’s_ all you can say?”

“ _’m_ not the one that decided to spend that much on tea.” Yugo huffed, “And besides, you just told me I’m tasteless, you should be happy I have _anything_ nice to say.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m surprised you have an opinion compared to all the crap we have in this house.”

“I do! This is better than that. It’s nice.” Yugo took another sip of it, “I kinda get why you threatened to poison anyone that touched it.”

Yuri snorted and rolled his eyes. He only did what had to be done.

He took a slow sip of his own tea, letting himself savor it as Yugo managed to down yet another rice ball, albeit more slowly. The taste settling over his tastebuds, Yuri couldn’t bring himself to _really_ complain about the cost of this. It was worth it.

“So Sanae wants you to take a picture of stuff that makes you happy?”

“She wants to annoy me to death, I’m pretty sure.” Yuri set down his cup and Yugo laughed.

“You should take a picture of your tea then! That’s better than dead slugs, and it definitely makes you happy, so it’s an easy one.”

“Hm.” Yuri didn’t comment as he fished out the camera again. He couldn’t say whether or not this made him happy. It was just tea, that was a stupid thing to feel any kind of emotion about.

Nonetheless, he snapped a picture of the kettle and the cups on the table. Two pictures down, only a million more to bullshit his way through.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone has comments about Yuri's characterization pls tell me I'm over here like "is this in character enough?? IS IT? IS IT???" RIP.


End file.
